Marlo Lewis exposes the tricks of the polling trade for National Journal, calling out misleading polling put out by the Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, and the American Lung Association.

Reporters covering advocacy polls seldom make any effort to expose rhetorical trickery, solicit comment from experts not employed by the pollster or the sponsor, or question the honest-broker status of agency-subsidized advocacy groups.

On September 9, 2013, the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will hear oral arguments in Verizon’s challenge of the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) December 2010 Order on “Preserving the Free and Open Internet.”

The arguments mark the critical culmination of a longstanding effort by FCC to expand power over speech and infrastructure in America in violation not merely of the Constitution and the rule of law (as plaintiffs and allies certainly allege; my organization took part in an amici curiae brief), but of common sense, economic efficiency, and consumer welfare.

Though some have tried to make a conservative case for a carbon support, there is little evidence many conservatives or Republicans actually support the idea. This vote against a carbon tax in an ALEC meeting in Chicago about two weeks ago comes after Republicans in both the House and the Senate voted unanimously against a carbon tax earlier this year.

“Unfortunately, the Obama Administration is implementing a number of regulations to raise energy costs. A strong vote for the Scalise anti-carbon tax amendment should be just the first step in the House’s efforts to block and de-fund President Obama’s radical climate agenda,” said Myron Ebell, president of Freedom Action.